Into The Wild By Jon Krakauer

John Krakauer’s novel Into The Wild, tells the story of a young man who intends to disappear from society, and contains numerous relatable themes. Although difficult for many to understand his reasoning in doing so, Krakauer intends to demonstrate to readers the positives and negatives of such an experience. Upon thorough examination of this piece of writing, it is possible to truly gain a vast amount of self-knowledge in relation to the text. A tale full of invitations to face ourselves, John Krakauer’s Into The Wild prompts me to examine myself in respect to concepts of great significance such as materialism, conformity, and intimacy.

Adventurer and journalist, Jon Krakauer, in his novel, Into the Wild, shares the story of McCandless’ journey. Krakauer’s purpose is to convey that McCandless was in fact an idealist and not insane to his Outdoor Magazine readers. In chapters 1-7, McCandless encounters several people as he goes along his journey. Krakauer uses the rhetorical strategy of characterization to explain McCandless’ personality to the readers.

Would choose a new car, a good job position and a high quality life or would you choose to give up all for a journey into the wild to discover the truth? Christopher Johnson McCandless choose ultimate freedom and truth rather than choosing security and material excess. The story into the wild is written by Jon Krakauer and it covers how Christopher lived for two years without the need of society and material excess. Chris journey enlightened him to the truth and made him feel the raw throb of existence. But, by mistaking people as part of society not as part of God creation and nature will suffer and eventually die. The journalist Jon Krakauer believes in Chris truth and see a relation between him and Chris and what gave him the motive ti write Into the Wild.

Jon Krakauer is an American writer known for his writings about the great outdoors. After being introduced to mountaineering as a child, Krakauer devoted much of his life to mountain climbing, leading up to his 1996 expedition to Mt. Everest. In his Into Thin Air, Krakauer recounts the dangerous journey, in which four of his teammates had died. Krakauer’s love for adventure significantly impacted many of his literary works, including Into the Wild, which focuses on the value of life and death, especially when one ventures into the great outdoors.

Chapter ten flashes forward to McCandless death, and it was published in the New York Time and Anchorage Daily News. The media wrote of how foolish and ignorant McCandless was for going into the wilderness so unprepared. Once the death is being investigated by the police the police begin to question Sam, McCandless’s half-brother. To identify him he shows them a picture with long hair and a beard. This made me question who was the man in the picture, was it really McCandless? He wasn’t reported as having long hair, ever. As the half-brother informs his parents of McCandless death the parents respond in devastation. I find it weird that the police contacted his half-brother first and not the parents. Oddly enough I find myself agreeing with the media more than I do with the author. I cannot seem to grasp the thought of going into the wilderness, and not being overly prepared. While I understand that it is a brave action, it is also foolish and somewhat stupid on his part. I also find him to be very selfish. In chapter eleven the author starts to interview McCandless parents, and starts to question the family’s dynamics. The father is very similar to McCandless in the aspect that he is very intense and highly intelligent. Chapter twelve is a continued exploration of McCandless’s character. The author wants to know what made McCandless, McCandless. He finds that he took a road trip to the desert the summer before his freshman year of college, and nearly died of dehydration. I

In chapters 14 and 15, autobiographer, Jon Krakauer shares his experience on the Stikine Icecap attempting to climb the Devil’s thumb. The inclusion of his personal experience helps the reader see how he can relate to Chris McCandless’s motivation to go to Alaska without having ever met him. Krakauer's experience illustrates the similarities of both of their lives and personalities.Krakauer describes himself as a willful, self-absorbed, passionate, and moody child who had problems with male authority figures. In his late twenties he becomes focused on climbing and begins to undertake more dangerous climbs. After a few years, he is determined to make the climb in Alaska’s Devils Thumb. Much like Chris, Jon will do the climb alone. He quits his

Endless miles of powder white snow, piercing bitter winds, and white-capped mountains, a continuing stretch of shimmering sand, relentless heat of a blazing sun, and high jagged cliffs, or a warm comfortable couch, a big blanket, a bag of chips, and Netflix. If asked which of these three would bring them happiness, many would undoubtedly say the third choice. But the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer tells the story of a young man, Chris McCandless, who if asked the same question, would choose the first two promptly. Chris McCandless, raised in the suburb of Washington D.C, left his home and started his own journey wandering all across North America in search of adventure after graduating from Emory University in 1990. In April 1992, he reached his biggest goal when he hitchhiked to Alaska and lived in the wild. Four months later, hikers and hunters found his S.O.S note and his dead body. But his inspiring story, as well as many others like it, have proven that to find happiness, it is necessary that a person leave the conformity of everyday life and find simplicity and excitement in the challenges of adventures and new experiences.

John Krakauer’s depiction of the tragic life of Chris McCandless in the award winning novel “Into the Wild” creates different schools of thought that brew a perfect storm for debate. Krakauer’s polarizing style is what makes it so special, because no two people will feel the same way as they experience the journey of McCandless. One of the highly discussed topics of the novel relates to the idea that Chris’ journey of self-discovery in his quest for “ultimate freedom” is inherently selfish or nobel. McCandless’ quest is noble in many ways. The first of which is his desire to leave behind the modern materialistic world and isolate himself to find peace. He also has this deep seated desire to fill a void, a missing

Jon Krakauer’s novel, Into the Wild, is an insightful nonfiction story about a young man named Christopher McCandless and his wonderful journey cross country, all the way from Virginia to his final destination in Alaska. Throughout the novel Chris McCandless creates the name Alexander Supertramp, mostly because his trip was about reinventing himself and completing one of his lifelong dreams. The novel begins with the situation in which random bystanders who are hiking or hunting, find Christopher McCandless’s body in an abandoned bus in Fairbanks, Alaska and everything else that follows in the novel is the details about his traveling through multiple states. Even though the novel tells you exactly how Chris’ adventure ends, the reader is still compelled to read all the details about his experience because of how the author tells his story in such a captivating way. Although Chris did go to college, he spent every spare moment on breaks from school taking long road trips in yellow Datsun, which was in a way, his first taste of escaping society. Chris lived his last years on earth without being restrained by society and without really having to worry about needing money for everything he wanted to do in life. Chris still needed money during his adventures so for months at a time, twice during his journey, he would work at Wayne Westerberg’s, one of his close friends, grain elevator in Carthage, South Dakota and also briefly ends up working at a McDonalds in Bullhead

Imagine this: a young adult vanishes without a trace to venture off into the wild and “discover” himself. With the bearings of a modern-day bildungsroman, such a story may not seem uncommon; after all, young adult novels and films have both glorified and censured the youthful adventure tale, perpetuating an image of adolescents (particularly young males) as courageous yet foolhardy individuals who adamantly desire self-discovery. Such depictions may not be far from reality, as demonstrated by the story of Chris McCandless in Jon Krakauer’s non-fiction book Into the Wild. Krakauer presents a relatively objective account of 24-year-old McCandless’s brief sojourn in the Alaskan wilderness and the events leading to his death, offering opinions from individuals who criticized the young man’s arrogance and foolhardiness as well as those who extolled McCandless as a noble, brave hero. To establish an extreme and unyielding stance on Chris McCandless – viewing him as either a righteous idealist or an inexperienced dunderhead – would disregard McCandless’s nuanced personality and his sensitive familial circumstances. When one takes into account McCandless’s estrangement from his family and his worship of author Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, it becomes clear that while McCandless was an ignorant and overconfident hypocrite who was unable to survive in the wild, he genuinely adhered to his beliefs and was not wholly responsible for his own death.

Chris McCandless and Henry David Thoreau in their two story’s Into the Wild and Walden show us the world of Transcendentalism through their eyes. Transcendentalism is a religion, movement and a life style to some. It’s the idea of being equal amongst all humans no matter what race or decadence; it’s accomplishing and having self-wisdom, and being one with nature devoting your life to the wild. Chris McCandless’s decision to devoting his life to the perpetual and thick Alaskan forest, and the menacing obstacles he may face, mirrors the Transcendentalist beliefs of Thoreau. An example in Into The Wild it tell how McCandless shreds his money into bits and pieces , and that he walks into the wild with a bag of rice and a gun.

Identity is something that all human beings search for throughout their lives. Who a person is, defines not only who they are but what their life will be like. When a person knows who they are it can give them a sense of power and confidence. Although, sometimes the components of a person’s identity can amount to a less than desirable being. Within the narratives of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, “Survivor Type” by Stephen King, and “To Build A Fire” by Jack London the identities of each protagonist are evident in several ways. Into the Wild is a true story that follows the adult life of Christopher McCandless including personal accounts from his friends and family as he hitchhiked in the United States until his eventual demise in the Alaskan wilderness. “Survivor Type” is a short story following a drug-dealing surgeon named Richard Pine as he is stranded alone on a small island and must resort to cannibalism to survive. “To Build A Fire” is also a short story that tells of another man’s journey on the Yukon trail through negative seventy-five degree weather, alone. Through their actions, values, and beliefs each man’s identity is thoroughly unraveled within their narratives.

Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air is an adventurous, nonfiction novel set on Mount Everest in 1996. The main characters consist of Rob Hall, Scott Fisher, the guides, and Jon Krakauer, the protagonist. The main conflict occurs when a snow storm hits on the group’s descent, and the expedition battles the obstacles created by it. Jon, a writer, is asked write an article about the commercialism on Mount Everest. Many climbers go missing during the expedition’s descent amid a severe storm. Although Krakauer and many others survived, nine lives were lost. In Jon Krakauer’s narrative, he demonstrates perseverance; although there was a horrible storm that could have killed everyone on the mountain, he was determined to live, and was able to survive.

In the novel “Into the Wild”, the author, Jon Krakauer, memorializes the life of the young adventurer Chris McCandless. McCandless aspired to travel to Alaska to break loose from the traditional conveniences of society and civilization. During his trip, McCandless journaled about his adventures. However, he did not live long enough to disclose the details of his journey in person. After discovering McCandless’s story, Krakauer decided to write “Into the Wild”. Although Krakauer never met McCandless, Krakauer is able to authorize voicing a dead man’s saga in a trustworthy narrative because of his use of McCandless’s journals and letters, primary source information from Chris’s friends and family, and by showing the parallels between him and the life of McCandless.

Jon Krakauer tells the life of Chris McCandless in the bestselling book Into the wild. The book documents McCandless' life through personal journals and interviews of the many people he came into contact with throughout his travels. His life comes off of one that was carefree, giving and lived to the most natural of lives somebody could live. Krakauer does a wonderful job of tugging at the heartstrings of his readers and painting the beautiful picture that is Chris McCandless. I will show that the